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Edited on Tue Jan-18-05 04:46 AM by LudwigVan
I got into the banjo, and bluegrass as well. The only country I can listen to is bluegrass and Willie.
I bought a cheap, used one a while ago, and having had a lot of experience on bass and some guitar, I was able to play basic notes and chords. But the bluegrass technique, perfected by masters like Earl Scruggs, is something amazing. It takes some amazing timing and coordination, as much (or more) than Yngwie-style guitar shredding. Sadly, I had to sell that banjo when I moved back to Austin. I miss that thing, even though it's hard to practice at 3 am when you got a roommate on account of it being so loud.
(Playing banjo also revolutionized my bass-playing technique, making me more of a Les Claypool wannabe than before, and then I discovered Jaco and fretless, microtonal music, and the oud, so now my playing has gotten really weird, but that's another story...)
Fleck mixes bluegrass with jazz fusion, and does so quite well, I must say. But he's getting upstaged a lot by Flecktones bassist Victor Wooten, the Yngwie of bass.
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